Almost £1m a year is paid out by patients, visitors and staff to park at north Cumbria's hospitals - with more than half going to a private firm.

All revenue from patient and visitor car parking at Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary - in the region of about £600,000 a year - goes to the PFI hospital's management company, Interserve.

The remainder, almost £400,000 from staff parking revenue in Carlisle and combined revenue in Whitehaven, goes back to the hospitals.

New figures show North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Cumberland Infirmary and West Cumberland Hospital, received a total of £367,000 in revenue from parking last year.

This is a combination of staff parking income at the Cumberland Infirmary and both staff and patient or visitor income at the West Cumberland Hospital during the 2015/16 financial year.

However none of the money paid out in patient and visitor parking at the Carlisle infirmary goes to the trust.

This instead goes to Interserve, which now appoints UK Parking Control (UKPC) to enforce parking regulations.

Nationally, it emerged this week that NHS hospitals are making more money than ever from car parking charges.

Hospitals across England made more than £120m from charging patients, staff and visitors for parking in the last year - up five per cent on the previous 12 months and rising year on year.

In North Cumbria, the total received by the trust was £367,000 in 2015/16; £398,000 in 2014/15; £394,000 in 2013/14 and £386,000 in 2012/13. The remainder, totalling about £600,00 a year, went to Interserve.

A trust spokeswoman said the hospitals reinvest all of their income back into patient care. However this does not apply to private firms.

She added: “Any profit made from visitor and staff car parking at West Cumberland Hospital is reinvested back into providing healthcare and improving the hospital environment.

"At the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, any profit made from staff car parking is also reinvested in this way.

"The trust’s PFI partner receives the revenue from pay and display parking at the Cumberland Infirmary.

"This is in the region of £600,000 per year.

"Any profit from visitor car parking goes to our PFI partner who we are currently working with to improve the availability of parking provision for patients, visitors and staff.

"A new 260 space car park is currently being constructed and is set to open in early 2017," she said.

The trust stressed that it receives no income for parking charges issued by UKPC at the Cumberland Infirmary.

"UKPC is contracted by our PFI partner and do not charge for their services but instead retain monies raised from parking charges," added the spokeswoman.

"They also manage administration and appeals with regard to car parking offences."

UKPC was brought in to run the car park at the Cumberland Infirmary in the summer after years of complaints about the previous system.

Patients said they were regularly late for appointments because they could not get a space, while emergency services had complained to bosses about illegally parked cars blocking vital ambulance routes.

Following talks with Interserve it was agreed to impose tough new rules in a bid to end the previous parking free-for-all.

However there were initially problems with the signs advertising the new charges, resulting in tickets being wrongly issued.

UKPC are now being brought in to enforce a similar system in Whitehaven, with new rules coming into force on January 3.